Tight Ten

I have one mantra written on the inside cover of my notebook in bright-red ink: A GOOD PUNCHLINE IS LIKE AN EXPLOSIVE FIRST KISS. Of all the corny platitudes I’ve been served by improv teachers in beige basement classrooms, this is the one that’s stuck. After flitting from open mic to open mic on any given night in New York, this is how I measure success: the first-kiss litmus test. When the room bursts into collective raucous laughter, the butterflies of surprise scurry through every limb. It’s electric. 

Sitting in a coffee shop trying to refine the shaky handwritten outline of my tight ten is anything but electric, but I can’t focus in the apartment. I’m trying to translate 2-A.M. Margot’s after-show comments into something helpful. gardening bit killed - more suspense? first date with gnome collection - shorter? irish sea shanty during sex - no laughs in 3 weeks :( 

Someone to my left breaks through over the house music pulsing through the speakers: “Margot?” I scramble to collect myself and shut my notebook - I’m protective of my work in its raw, unfiltered state, even though I’ve delivered variations of these stories five times a night in the last week. My elbow bumps my iced latte, which almost tips to the ground, but I catch it at the last second. “Nice save,” the voice says, snorting above me. 

I soften when I see the culprit. “Naina!” One of the many reasons why I can’t focus at home. She’s as cool and effortless as the night I met her, a worn-and-loved leather jacket hanging from her shoulders. Christian had teased me later in the evening, after the party crowd thinned to a few privileged stragglers, when I asked after her. Who’s that Naina girl? She’s pretty, I mumbled, half-awake on the sofa. 

Jealous? Christian snorted.

About?

She was talking to your ex.

My mouth pressed into a thin line. Yes, but not in the way you think, I wanted to say. I wasn’t jealous of her. I’ve always been jealous of David. The way he moves through the world with so much ease, hooking gorgeous, interesting girls one by one into his orbit like shiny keyrings. Of course the girl I’d been eyeing at his birthday party, drinking out of my cup and peering at me through her rockstar-girlfriend eyeliner, had been snared in too. I’d dismissed Christian with a don’t care, shut up and fallen asleep curled into the flimsy novelty throw pillow from Target minutes later. 

“Christian told me you’re a comedienne,” Naina says, settling into the chair next to me. “Working on some jokes?”

“He said I’m a terrible stand-up, didn’t he,” I deadpan. Fucking Christian. Always tagging along to open mics where the backstage set-up looks, smells, and sounds like a men’s locker room, killing with a series of well-placed, improvised roasts to the crowd. Always trying to give me tips after we hit the circuit together, like I haven’t been doing this longer than him.

“No, not at all!” she chirps at an octave higher.

“You do not have to protect my feelings,” I laugh. “He’s my friend, but I can’t stand his ass. So competitive.”

“For the record, I didn’t believe him when he said it.” she says. 

“He’s great at crowd work, though, I’ll give him that,” I say. “I’m so anal about…” I crack open my notebook again, gesturing to the grid of meticulous notes. “All of this. Following the narrative exactly. It gets laughs, but it’s not quite where I want it to be. Maybe I need to let it go a little bit. Be more loose. Play with the crowd more.”

“Can I…?” Her hand brushes mine, pulling the notebook slightly in her direction, and my cheeks go hot. I snatch my hand away under the guise of sipping my coffee.

“Go ahead,” I say, clearing my throat. “I don’t know if it’ll make sense to anyone but me.” Maybe this will be good: Naina has an air of opinionated sureness about her. I need someone decisive to look at my work. Someone who rolls up to a new city, at a new party where she knows no one, and drinks out of someone else’s cup without a second thought. I have this urge to be belly-up and pliant with her, to show her David has no atom of influence over what I think of her, to say, please, I don’t bite, I just think you’re beautiful and I’m nervous.

She chuckles to herself as she reads through. “Oh, I’ve gotta hear this one,” she says, pointing a burgundy nail towards the sea shanty story. 

Maybe the urge to impress someone new will breathe new life into it. I don’t like to workshop my jokes in front of my friends - especially Christian - but this could work. “I think I’m gonna tell it at an open mic tonight,” I say. “If you’re free. It’s a divey club. You’d like it, very Chicago-esque crowd.” 

“I’ll move some things around,” she says. I think she’s joking, but it’s true to how I picture her private life. A Tetris puzzle of cool people and cooler bars. “And what if--” she starts. “Well, I don’t know much about comedy, so take my idea with a grain of salt.”

“I’ll take anything from you,” I say. I gulp. We both laugh. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I can spill my darkest and most embarrassing anecdotes on stage in front of strangers upwards of a dozen times a week, but I’ll forever be tongue tied around a pretty girl. 

“What if you do some crowd work tonight, and call on me? Like a secret plant. That way it’s low stakes. We don’t have to pre-plan anything we say, but at least you know you have someone who’s rooting for you.” 

“It’s always nice to know at least one person is rooting for me,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “Count me in.”

Another mantra from the first-kiss improv teacher: get a uniform. Something people can remember you by, something you can move around in, something you can pull on and teach your body the instinctual cues of showtime. 

I was once given the feedback you’re all hair and hands in an empty theater with other comics-in-training. I’ve chosen something to pull the eye: a leopard-print boiler suit. It cinches in at the waist, goes with everything, distracts from the wild beasts of my hair and hands onstage. 

I’m fiddling with the zipper that rests on my sternum in the wings. The room’s almost full. I’m fourth on the lineup. 

“Next up, we’ve got Margooooot,” the emcee trills, and I’m removing the mike from its stand to the hungry applause of a still-perky crowd.

I rest my notebook on the stool and dive in. The first five-ish minutes of my set move fast -  I like when I’m placed the early slots best. The magic in-between when people have just ordered their second round, when they’re willing to indulge me. I’ve decided to end with the sea shanty story, a last chance at revival. Naina’s sitting in the second row, a perfect angle for me to tilt forward, totally natural, and ask--

“What’s your name?” 

“Margot,” she says, winking. A perfect callback to the night we met, her lips on the edge of my cup. The butterflies rustle somewhere around my ankles, anticipating release. 

“Another Margot! My name twin. What a coincidence. Give it up for Margot.” The crowd cheers. I step down from the stage and hoist the mic over an empty seat in the first row. “Okay, okay Margot, let’s say you’re driving me home, you’re wanting to set the mood, I give you the aux… what music do you put on, as a normal, well-adjusted person?”

“Some cool indie shit,” she says into the mic, all vocal fry and warm eyes. The crowd giggles.

“Cool indie shit! Exactly. The song starts and I’m thinking, oh, sweet, this is some underground band I haven’t heard of. Then, all of a sudden--” I launch into the bad, unintelligible Irish accent, and the crowd roars in a way they haven’t before. “So I say to him, oh, haha, this is so funny. Good choice. And he turns to me, goes, what’s funny?

Now, what would you do, Margot, would you hook up with this guy?” 

“Absolutely not,” Naina says. 

“Right, no, totally,” I say. “I didn’t do that at all, definitely didn’t go home with the Lucky Charms guy.” Two guys in the row behind her with matching pints of Guinness are bent over laughing. I finish the story, and the crowd erupts. “I’ve been Margot,” I say, “thank you. Give it up for the other Margot up here,” I say, pointing to Naina. 

“Margot, you biiiiiiitch,” the next comic says when we brush past each other behind the curtain, a man I recognize from a few open-mics. “How am I supposed to follow that up? Killlleddddddd it.”

“Got ‘em nice and warm for you, don’t worry,” I say, giving him a pat on the shoulder. 

My favorite bartender slides me a Negroni, and I perch myself on a stool, watching the comic after me spin a story of getting high with his in-laws. This is the first time I’ve felt content after a set in months. Most nights, this is the part when I zone out and grade my own performance, but my head is pleasantly empty. Once he’s finished, I sneak into the crowd, slide in next to Naina. “Heard this was the Margots Only section,” I say. 

She squeezes my hand. “You were so good. Holy shit. Margot.”

The negroni, or more likely Naina saying my name like that, the waft of her Baccarat Rouge, her hand slotted in mine with no sign of moving, makes my vision go fuzzy at the edges. “Thank you.”

We watch a few more acts, and I’m hyper-aware of our knees bumping, the way we lean into each other when we laugh. 

The crowd thins, and the sign-up sheet starts to fill with the self-righteous what’s with the woke kids these days whiners. I rest a hand on Naina’s thigh, daring. “Wanna get out of here? The boys like to go to this kinda grimey bar after we’re done here, but I prefer a better spot.”

“After that set, I’ll follow you anywhere.”

We’re watching a chef old enough to be either one of our grandfathers knead fresh pasta dough through a glass partition while we split a bottle of his brother’s homemade red wine. I found this place by accident one night after a bad bomb - heckles, awkward silence, the works - signless, no-frills, unpretentious, open until 3 a.m. The kind elder chef, Gio, has seen me hunched over this counter with my notebook and a bowl of bolognese more than I see some of my closest friends.

“I can’t get over how great you were,” Naina says.

“You’re sweet,” I reply, swallowing the last dregs of my glass and pouring another. “You’re my good luck charm, I guess. So you have to come to all my shows now. It’s the law.”

“Gladly,” Naina says. “Seriously, Margot, you should be huge. Netflix special, the works.”

“Too much, too much,” I tease, poking the soft skin of her bicep. 

“I mean it. I love seeing passionate people live out their passions,” she says, tearing off a piece of bread and dipping it in the shallow pool of olive oil between our plates. “And you look amazing doing it, so.”

“You don’t--” I’m losing my words now, scrubbing a nervous hand through my hair. “You don’t have to be nice to me because of David, or anything. I promise I don’t care if you’re talking to him. We’ve been over for a loooooong time.”

“Oh, god, Margot, please. I barely know him,” she says. “I want to know you. Unrelated to him in any way, shape, or form. Okay?”

“Okay, heard, heard,” I laugh. “That’s why I started comedy, I think. I wanted something that was entirely my own. Not linked to me being anyone’s daughter or friend or girlfriend or ex-girlfriend. You know?”

“Totally,” she says, and she runs her thumb over the back of my hand, so gentle. “From female artist to female artist - I see you as exactly that.” I have this bit I’m working on, somewhere in the sea of my drafts, about my love for period pieces. How I want to touch and be touched like a Jane Austen protagonist, with a kind of urgency and thrill that’s almost undetectable, like the flash of an ankle or the flex of a hand, but I couldn’t quite capture it. Until now. It’s this. Naina’s thumb, my secret spot, the bottle of wine between us, the only two at the bar, sat with our thighs pressed together. 

“You already saw my notebook,” I say, “but I have this silly thing written inside of it. I think you’d like it.” I flip to the front cover, the silly saying written in bright crimson, and she laughs, runs her finger across the words. I watch her mouth them to herself. A GOOD PUNCHLINE IS LIKE AN EXPLOSIVE FIRST KISS.

“I love it,” she says.

“You think tonight accomplished that?”

“Major first kiss energy.”

“That’s all I can ever hope for.” 

We finish our food and I insist on paying as a thank you. She flits to the restroom before we leave, and Gio’s eyes follow her down the dark hallway, until the door clicks shut.

“A date?” He asks.

I stare down the narrow expanse of the corridor after her, too, like it’ll offer me an answer. “Maybe?”

He laughs. “Comedy’s good?”

“Better than ever, actually,” I say.

“Keep it up,” he says. “You’ll always have a seat here, bella.”

Naina emerges, and I hook my arm in hers. “Ready?”

“You girls be safe,” Gio says, and I salute him. He winks and waves. 

The bells above the doorway give us a send-off back into the noise of the city at night, and we walk in sure strides, aimless, down the sidewalk until we slow in front of an antique store’s window display. “Look, it’s you,” she says, pointing to a faded poster of Catwoman.

“Ha,” I snort. “Hey, you’re funny. You ever heard of stand-up?”

“I thought stand-up was only for cool girls named Margot.”

“So you might be in luck, unless you used a fake name in my audience tonight.”

“I hate to tell you this, but…” she starts, and we’re facing each other now, laughing in the chill of the night air. My answer to Gio lingers as she inches closer: maybe, maybe, maybe. Her fingers start toying with my zipper, and I wonder if she can feel my heartbeat hammering under her knuckles.

“So,” I say.

“So.”

“You know what’s funny?” 

“Hm?”

“Gio asked me if this was a date.”

“A daaaate?” She chirps. “What’d you say?” Her fingers are still twirling my zipper.

“I said maybe. I thought it kinda felt like it. But also, isn’t that kind of a straight man’s idea of a date? Come listen to me yap on stage for 10 minutes and then I’ll take you to dinner where I want to go?”

“Felt like Margot’s idea of a date to me,” she says, smiling. “Not a man’s. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says. “How about this. Imagine there’s cool indie shit playing. Or an Irish sea shanty. Whatever gets you going.”

I’m giggling, and biting my lip, and wondering: what would my improv teacher do? What would David do? What would the Margot of my vision boards, manifestation tapes, improv class affirmations, back-of-the-notebook dreams, do?

I’m kissing her, in front of the moon, tin-sign Catwoman, Gio’s block, the sentient beast of New York City, and her jaw is soft under my hands, and my mind and my body are just a syrupy mess of yes, this, yes, and her perfume, and the stickiness of two mouths swathed in lip gloss.

We come apart, somehow, and I’m so dazed I don’t remember which of us says it.

“Good punchline, huh?”